Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems utilize mirrors or other types of reflective members to concentrate the sun's energy onto points or lines. A typical CSP system uses a parabolic dish for supporting the minors. More specifically, the minors are aligned and mounted on a strongback so as to provide an optical surface that is configured for concentrating incident solar rays onto an energy convertor, such as for instance a heat engine. In order to permit the mirrors to receive maximum energy from the sun the parabolic dish-shaped array may be mounted to a structural pylori, and coupled with a drive unit and controller assembly for tracking the movement of the sun across the sky.
Several problems are known to be associated with prior art CSP systems that are based on parabolic dish-shaped arrays. In particular, the array that is used for concentrating the sun's energy is made from gore assemblies having parabolic reflector elements secured to an A-surface thereof. Each gore assembly must have a precisely defined shape across its entire A-surface, which may have a relatively large surface area. Providing a precise shape over relatively large surface areas is challenging from a manufacturing standpoint. Further, when the gore assemblies are assembled together to form the dish-shaped array, the resulting structure must be sufficiently rigid to be able to support the weight of the array and substantially prevent deformation of the optical surface, even under conditions of extreme wind and snow loading.
It would be desirable to provide a gore assembly and a method of making such a gore assembly, which overcomes at least some of the above-mentioned limitations of the prior art.